Report Again Names Professor as Low-Stress Job

Submitted by Colleen Flaherty on January 8, 2014 - 3:00am

What do tenured professors have in common with audiologists, hair stylists and jewelers? They’ve all got the lowest-stress jobs, according to a new report from CareerCast.com. The job portal’s annual ranking, which last year named university professor as the No. 1 least stressful job, has attracted much criticism from professors who say their work entails more than its fair share of stress. The 2013 ranking backlash escalated[1] after Forbes picked up on the study and published an article saying that "professors have a lot less stress than most of us," thanks to lots of vacation time and few deadlines. In response to that article, professors took their complaints to Twitter under hashtags such as #RealForbesProfessors. Gawker even weighed in on the debate, with a post called "The Forbes-College Professor War Is So On."

This year’s report[2] ranks university professor the No. 4 least-stressful job, behind audiologist, hair stylist and jeweler. Seamstress/tailor, dietician, medical records technician, librarian, multimedia artist and drill press operator round out the top 10 least stressful jobs. The No. 1 most stressful job is enlisted member of the military, followed by military general. Unlike last year – when adjunct professors pointed out that uncertain employment and low per-course pay were particularly stressful aspects of their jobs – the ranking notes that it refers specifically to tenured professors. (Last year’s ranking referred only to full-time professors, not adjuncts, but that was not made clear in the ranking itself.)

Via email, a CareerCast spokeswoman said that the organization had not changed its methodology – which takes into account 11 factors, including travel required, potential for growth and deadlines – in light of the criticism. Tony Lee, publisher, CareerCast, added via email: "We received a lot of feedback about our ranking of university professor as a low-stress job. But we found that while adjunct and part-time teachers are right that their jobs can be stressful, the stress levels for tenured university professors – which is what we rank – are lower than the majority of other jobs we measure in our report."